


Focus, Borrowed from the Latin

by Alconis



Series: The Lucenarium: After Dark [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Edging, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Masturbation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, guided masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-29 23:51:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17817884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alconis/pseuds/Alconis
Summary: “I have learned more about focus from the crosshairs of a sniper rifle than I ever did from that mediocre drivel.”“And what, pray tell, did you learn,” Vesper asked, taking the bait and entering his trap.“Control. Patience. Stillness.” Asher's voice was warm and rough as his fingers ghosted over the backs of her knees, making her shiver. “Quiet.”“I suppose you could teach me,” she said, and it was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown. She gave him a look that was doe-eyed and innocent, then she rolled onto her back, inviting him to pursue.Asher leads vesper through a "meditation." And yes, that's a euphemism.





	Focus, Borrowed from the Latin

 

> _Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book IV, 3_

 

They had been laying side by side in bed for an hour now, and Vesper felt as though she was about to go completely mad.

When Asher said he wanted to spend the day in bed, this was  _not_ what she thought he meant. All she could do was lay beside him reading a book of meditations, unused to the silence.

Asher sat with his back against the wall, surrounded by his datapads and a stack of notebooks. She could see his hands tapping on the keys as he entered the last set of amplitude measurements he’d gathered on the Taken anomalies. He was calm — quiet even.

Without noise to distract her, Vesper’s mind wandered. In the still, cold air of Asher’s bedroom, her thoughts drifted away from her book as the words spun away from the page. Her mind took leave for a few moments, and she felt as though she was disconnected from her body.

She came back to herself with a shiver and a start, and frowned, pressing her nose against the page. Vesper vowed to _never_ ask Ikora for “ _a bit of light reading_ ” again.

Rolling on to her stomach, she tried to get comfortable as she made another attempt to untangle the text on the page. Though it wasn't uncomfortable, she still fidgeted, swinging her legs back and forth in lazy, idle patterns. Then she felt a soft touch on her ankle at the apex of the swing.

“Don’t,” Asher said, voice firm but not looking away from his screen. After a half-second, he brought her leg down and removed his hand. She hid her smile in the pages of her book but didn’t turn around. They both remained quiet for a few more seconds. But in the quiet, her foot started to tap and shake in an inconsistent rhythm to a beat that only she could hear.

“Stop.” Asher’s voice was harder, and he traced down her leg and rested his hand on the back of her thigh. “I’m unable to concentrate with your constant fidgeting.”

Vesper’s leg stilled. She huffed, frustrated in her inability to remain at rest, and it took her a moment to realize Asher’s hand was still on her leg, tracing lazy circles with his thumb.

When she twisted her neck to look at him, she could see his gaze still remained intent on his datapad in his Vex hand. His touch on her skin was delicate, soothing. With her eyes closed, she focused on the whisper-soft sensation of his touch, letting it ground her. She turned back to her book with an almost inaudible sigh of pleasure to reward his attention and remained still for several minutes.

After a time, Asher cleared his throat. “If that is the book of meditations that Ikora gave you, I might describe her choice of reading material as banausic and mundane.” His palm began to slide further up her leg as his voice maintained an even, low tone. “What _exactly_ are you trying to accomplish by studying that nonsense?”

“I’m _trying_ to learn how to focus.” She couldn’t hide the hitch in her voice as his hand reached the soft skin on the inside of her thigh. His thumb massaged the twitching, tender muscle with gentle, solid pressure, and Vesper struggled to remain still even as his fingers drew ribbons of warmth across her leg.

When he grazed the damp fabric that covered her sex, a soft gasp escaped from her mouth. Her book tumbled to the floor, and Vesper gave up any pretense of reading in favor of tilting her head back to look at Asher. He had also set his tablet aside, looking at her with the same sharp eye as he did his calculations and figures.

“ _Hmph_. That book is sesquipedalian at best and turgid at its worst.” His words held the pretense of sarcasm, but Vesper had learned they usually hid an ulterior motive that could only be found buried beneath his prejudice. She knew very few who cared to try and dig them out. “I have learned more about focus from the crosshairs of a sniper rifle than I ever did from that mediocre drivel.”

“And what, pray tell, did you learn,” she asked, taking the bait and entering his trap.

“Control. Patience. Stillness.” His voice was warm and rough as his fingers ghosted over the backs of her knees, making her shiver. “Quiet.”

“Hmm… I suppose you could teach me,” she said, and it was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown. She gave him a look that was doe-eyed and innocent, then she rolled onto her back, inviting him to pursue. His hand traced slow paths her skin up her leg as she moved, inch by inch, as if to move away would mean returning to their work.

When she’d settled, he shifted to lay next to her. “You make a terrible pupil. Willful and distractible. Prone to mediocrity.” He punctuated his words with his lips on her skin.

Vesper laughed, and the soft sound was interrupted by a gasp as his hand slipped past her underwear and found the wetness at her core. He dipped his fingertips inside, lingering for the briefest of seconds, and then ran his hand over her mound to tug at the fabric. She lifted her hips so he could drag the offending garment off and toss it over the side of the bed.

When she lay back down, his hand, damp with her own arousal, slid under her shirt, over her hip, and around her side. His palm came to rest against her ribs and she sighed, eyebrow raised as she looked at him with mock sincerity. “Asher. You’re a _terrible_ teacher. You’re impatient and rude. Demanding.”

“Merely thorough.” He said against her lips. Then there was just the feeling of his mouth on hers. He kissed as though there was all the time in the world — slow, lazy kisses that tasted like the rarest of delicate morsels. His hand stayed constantly in motion, never going further than grazing her skin, running figure eights and circles and parallel lines in kaleidoscopic patterns over her legs, her sex, her abdomen, her breasts… finding soft skin and tender spots long neglected.

After a time, he pulled back and looked at her with a calculating pause. “Focus, you said?” His question fell from bruised lips. “Will you allow me to lead you through a meditation?”

Vesper nodded, breathless. “You can try.”

He gave her a look, one that was filled with insulted arrogance and ridicule, as if to chastise her doubt of their combined ability as warlocks. “We do not _try_ , my dear. We _do._ ”

Then he was gently unbuttoning her shirt and letting it slip off her shoulders, exposing her breasts to the air. Her nipples instantly hardened, and he leaned down to nip at them, his teeth grazing tender flesh. When he sat up, he shifted their places and Vesper was surprised to feel his right arm — the one that wasn’t _really_ his — slip behind her head and wrap around her shoulder. “Asher, that’s not…”

“Tch. There is a purpose in all things, my dear. Trust me.” As she lay back against the tender muscle, he took a sharp, almost inaudible gasp. The sound made her wince, creating a crease between her eyebrow and a point of stress in her body in acknowledgment of his pain. Asher stopped and held her still, clicking his tongue in admonishment at her in return.

“Focus, my dear, but not on me.” He shifted once more, settling her into the crook of his shoulder and letting his left wander free down her side. “Vesper, listen to the sound of my voice. If it helps, you may close your eyes, but it is not necessary.”

She obeyed, letting her eyes drift closed as she imagined what he looked like as he pressed lips against her neck. His breath was warm and his lips soft, and when he spoke again, his words were a balm on her skin. “Now, I want you to touch yourself.”

Vesper’s eyes shot open, and she tried to turn to look at him. When she moved, he put his left hand on her breast and twisted, making her gasp and shift against him. After a second of this, the sensation of his lips on her neck sent that familiar electric warmth through her veins and she stilled.

“Focus on you. Breathe.” He whispered in her ear, directing her to let her left hand drift down her body and slide slowly over smooth skin, letting her fingers slip through the soft hair that curled sweetly over her mound. Her fingertips drifted over her labia, her touch lighter than a whisper, and she took long breaths in time to her hand’s movement.

“Good girl.” Asher tilted her head so he could kiss at the soft skin at the join of the shoulder and neck. “I want you to breathe, and bring your other hand to your breast.”

“Asher, this is backward,” Vesper whined, feeling awkward as she touched herself with her non-dominant hand.

Before she could protest further, Asher bit hard at her tender muscle. Instantly, she arched up and moaned, as the pain sent a blossom of heat through her body right to her core. She slipped her fingers between her labia and felt the wetness there, soaking her fingertips. Asher nipped and sucked at the mark he had made, and then found the shell of her ear.  

“Now, Vesper, pay attention. Your right hand no longer belongs to you.” He put his lips softly at the arch, then moved to bite softly at her earlobe as she moaned. “That is my hand now. And listen to me very carefully. I’m going to touch you now with my right hand.”

Vesper made a noise that sounded like a sob and tried to turn in his arms, but he held her still. His breath was hot on her cheek as he whispered, desperate. “My dear, let me do this. You are my assistant. Please, _assist_ me.”

“Yes.” The word came out in a rush as if she had already spoken it before she opened her mouth.

He made a noise of approval and kissed her cheek roughly, the almost imperceptible stubble on his jaw rough on her own. “Good girl. Now, with _my_ hand, touch your breasts. Can you do this for me?”

Nodding, Vesper set her right palm over her breast, covering a dark purple areole and brushing against her nipple, even as she continued to touch her sex with her left.

“Now, I’m going to squeeze your breast and feel the weight of it in my hand. Then I’m going to rub and pinch at your nipple. I find they’re quite lovely when they’re hard.” Vesper followed Asher’s instructions, imagining it _was_ his hand, trying to imagine how he would touch her.

“Very good. Do the same to your left, sliding my palm over your skin. I want so very much to feel your skin. Though I know how smooth it is, how sweet it tastes, this is a new sensation I haven’t quantified.” He continued to speak as he brought his left hand back up, smoothing her hair then wrapping his arm over her neck, pressing gently. “Tell me, my dear, how does my hand feel?”

She could only moan as he directed her to slide the hand further down, mimicking what she had done with her left. He had her find her clit, gently rubbing circles around the sensitive organ, touching it, running her thumb over it, and each time he shifted action or location, he’d ask her how it felt.

Her answers came in hitched breaths, gasps, and sharp cries, and he marked each with a tally of soft, wet kisses at her jaw and neck.

Vesper began to beg, babbling at him, begging him, “Asher, don’t… please.”

“Don’t what, assistant? Don’t have you slip my fingers inside you? Don’t have you curl my fingers up?” He gripped tighter at her neck with his arm, and the pressure sent a shock of pleasure down to her abdomen. “Be clear, Vesper. Don’t what?”

“Stop. Don’t stop.” Her voice was cracked and high, breath short. “Asher, _please_.”

“How could I?” His cheek was warm against hers as she bowed off the bed, thrusting against her hand as she pressed the hand inside and up. “Though I am not prone to hyperbole, this is fundamentally the single most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

She laughed and rolled her eyes at him, before Asher bit her earlobe to scold her. Appropriately penitent, she focused again on the extraordinary spectrum of sensations she felt.

He continued to have her lazily pleasure herself, though each time she started to feel a familiar tightness in her belly or even come close to the edge, he would stop touching her with “his” hand.

Vesper was dying of cruelty, all but begging him to let her come. But this Asher was the rarest of all: the one who paid no attention to time or space, or to the ticking countdown of his impending mortality, or to the absent sound of gunfire from the distance. She glimpsed this Asher only in small moments, harder and rarer than diamonds.

This was an Asher who was _patient._

She was reduced to a sobbing wreck, her fingers sliding in and out, slowly fucking herself, as he marked her neck, then turned her face towards him so that he could kiss her. Time started to lose meaning, there was no rhyme or reason to it, just the perpetual race to the edge and then being pulled back like a puppet.

He was no longer directing her with words, just letting her move and rewarding or punishing her as he liked. She now knew he preferred it when she touched the inside of her thighs or skimmed over her labia with the softest of touches. She also knew he didn’t want her to come just from touching her clit. He would stop there, but never let her linger; instead, he’d have her find a new sliver of skin for “his hand” to touch. Vesper knew she must have run her fingers across miles of skin, exploring her ass, her hips, her thighs, her waist, her ribs… and relearning what her body felt like and imagining this was the first touch his hand had felt in forever.

There came the point where she forgot it _was_ her hand, and she bucked up into it as she thrust three fingers inside herself and moaned Asher’s name.

“Focus, Vesper. Those fingers, they’re mine now.” He echoed himself as he pulled her closer to his chest, and she did not know how much longer she could resist falling off the edge. “They’re mine, just as you are mine. And I want to make you come. Can you do that for me?”

A wail was his only answer as she tried to fuck herself harder.

“Focus. Tell me, and _use your words_. We are not uncouth barbarians who fuck as they fight.”

“Yes.” She gasped again as he pressed his arm harder against her throat. “Yes, I want to come.”

He pressed his lips against her forehead as she turned her head and sobbed against his coat. He continued, whispering, drawing out his words as she took herself closer. “This is what it means to have focus, Vesper. I could have you continue all day, finding new edges, extending the cusp further. Focus does not come from here,” and he kissed her forehead again. “It’s here.”

And for the first time, she felt the arm that _wasn’t_ his wrap around her belly, pressing the metal digits against her lower abdomen. The pressure bloomed down through her core, and she felt closer to the finish than he’d let her come so far. But he wasn’t done yet.

“Accepted theory says that the light that governs our existence has us reaching outward for the gifts that we have been given.” He said this as he stroked up and down her abdomen with the cool metal fingers. “But you and I both know you must reach inward. In _here_.” And he pressed again at her lower abdomen, right above her mons, where the pressure was the greatest.

Vesper felt her walls clench, feeling how full she felt with her fingers inside and her thumb grazing her clit. She gasped, drawing in her breath as a series of hiccuping sobs in time to her thrusts. Her release was building like it was a ball of light in her throat, building behind her eyes, flooding down her arms to her toes, as if the reservoir of sensation had burst.

“Vesper,” and Asher’s voice sounded as rough as she felt full. “Come, now.”

His words came in tandem with her falling over the edge, and she was unsure of whether his words came first or she did. Her orgasm was terrifying, both wonderful and terrible, in the way that she knew the word _turannos_ meant _tyrant._  Asher held her as her back arched off the bed, her left hand finding the sheets and clawing at them, and he held her through the aftershocks as she trembled in his arms. She could feel the sweat on her brow making her hair stick to it, and he brushed the damp strands away before he kissed her there again.

“Now, do you understand?” His whisper was almost inaudible under her gasping breaths. “We do not need some mawkish drivel to guide our meditation.”

She laughed, merely a huff of breath between her smile, and she felt as though she might cry. “Asher, that…”

“Hush.” He pawed at her limbs, limp and shaking as they were, and maneuvered her so she was laying with her head in his lap. She vaguely registered his hardness, but he batted away her hands when she tried to sit up so she could reciprocate. Her skin started to cool as she lay naked against his soft robes, and she vaguely registered him pulling a blanket over her body.

“If my calculations are correct, and, as you know, they always are,” he said, reaching over her to pick up one of his notebooks, “Your body temperature should be dropping enough now to cause drowsiness. You may also have a familiar sensation of euphoria, but if you have a bitter taste in your mouth, please tell me.”

She chuckled and gave him a soft swat with her hand. Vesper twisted her body around him, drawing her legs up so they curled around his waist and back. He huffed, impatient as she settled, then began to write figures into his notebook without seeming regard to her comfort. But she knew otherwise.

Warm and relaxed, Vesper did not notice when his writing turned to the soft scratching sound of sketching, as her breathing had slowed, and she had drifted off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> So there was [an exchange on Tumblr](https://alconiswrites.tumblr.com/post/182595178692/distantstorm-leftnipsdoodles-asher-mir), and I may have promised hugs for Asher. This isn't exactly hugs, but hopefully, this will do.
> 
> Update 3-2-19: Minor changes to grammar.


End file.
